r/random_acts_of_pizza

The internet is not overflowing with bastions of altruism — indeed, it’s rather hard to come by. That’s why r/random_acts_of_pizza is so unusual. This is a sub-Reddit completely dedicated to giving free pizzas to people that need a helping hand.

Posts are tagged as request or offers. It is understood that if you are “pizza’d” that you will “pizza it forward” when you are able. The moderators keep a pretty close watch on everything and assign badges to users that have been gifted or paid back a pie. There is also a verification system to make sure no one is gaming the system. Some people even post thank you messages with pictures of the gifted pizza.

Checking out r/random_acts_of_pizza can be a feel-good experience, but also a bit of a downer at times. Some of the request posts talk about lost jobs, mounting bills, and dwindling food budgets. So maybe you want to chip in and turn someone’s day around?

r/Whatsinthisthing

We humans are curious creatures, and nothing piques the internet’s collective interest like an unknown. The mysterious sub-Reddit r/Whatsinthisthing is all about trying (and sometimes succeeding) to getting into locked boxes, safes, and doors so we can see what’s inside.

Posts are tagged as either “locked” or “unlocked” for your convenience. The comments of r/whatsinthisthing are a mishmash of joking around and serious attempts to get the thing in question open. It is understood that if the original poster gets their thing open, they’ll come back to Reddit and show everyone what they found. Some hauls are truly amazing — valuable coins, rare books, cash, and old photographs are common finds. Some Redditors even find entire rooms, like the World War II era secret room you see in the image. You can’t win them all, though — sometimes it’s just old receipts.

The content in this sub-Reddit sometimes veers into the realm of technology when someone comes across a thumb drive or some other data storage device. Finding a way to read ancient or damaged hard drives is a completely different kind of challenge for r/Whatsinthisthing.

r/Astrophotography

This sub-Reddit is for dedicated geeks that aren’t content just craning their necks skyward. No, they want to really see what’s up there. Rather than rely on Hubble and other big telescopes, they acquire their own (much smaller) ground-based units and hook up cameras. No one is budgeting anything near what NASA does, but it’s not a cheap hobby either.

There are a few shots of the moon in r/Astrophotography most days, but a surprising number of the posts are extremely impressive. You’ll see planets in our own solar system, but also distant galaxies and nebulas are photographed by regular folks in their own backyards. The level of detail is sometimes staggeringly good.

In addition to all the awesome pictures, there are also some meta posts about how to get into astrophotography. You can learn about the optical equipment, mounts, cameras, and post-processing techniques needed to start snapping images of local nebulae and star clusters from your own backyard.

This is just a sampling of the awesome things happening on Reddit outside of the defaults zones. You can find almost anything on Reddit.